


Green Eyes

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-31
Updated: 2008-01-31
Packaged: 2019-01-19 22:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12419718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Snape isn't the only one who looks into those green eyes and remembers.





	Green Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

He had those same green eyes. They were the first thing she noticed when he opened his sleepy eyelids to look into her face and he smiled, damn him. The same smile. 

She had been prepared to hate him, oh yes. The squalling little brat of her long-lost sister and _that_ boy she picked up at _that_ school, Mr Perfect with his charming manners and his devil-may-care smile, staring at Lily as though she was the centre of all that was good and right in the world. She had, from the moment she picked the blanket up and held it at arm’s length, a houseproud woman disposing of a dead mouse, perhaps, been oh-so ready to hate this parasite that had been the final nail in her sister’s coffin. But he had opened those eyes at her, and she had been lost.

When Lily had left, Petunia tore up all the little notes and stories they would write together at night. She threw away the photo of the two hugging little girls on her bedside table and replaced it with a photo of a band. She dug in her wardrobe and removed the dance costumes she and Lily had made, pressing the lacy material to her face one last time before burying them in the rubbish, under the family’s weekly bin bags. Visitors who had not before been to the house thought Petunia was an only child (“oh, no,” her parents would say with a faint smile. “Our other daughter has a scholarship abroad.” Petunia would purse her lips). It was entirely too easy to believe Lily had never existed until the holidays, when all the peace and staid emptiness would shatter. 

Her parents would laugh. They never laughed like that, normally.

Petunia stayed in her room.

There had been a triumph when Lily had found the photos removed, when, after the very first term at Hogwarts she had returned to a small, neatly-folded pile of her clothes outside her door. Lily’s green eyes, never able to hide emotion, had looked so wounded. Petunia had ignored her. Even now she almost, almost wished she could have swallowed her pride and simply said, ‘It’s OK. Let’s still be friends’. But hadn’t Lily wounded her far worse, had changed all the rules, had left the safety of her love, had rejected her after all those years of protection. 

When Lily married, Petunia did not attend her wedding. She did not look at photos of her sister, for she had none left. She pretended illness and her parents did not press her to attend, or even crow too much upon their return. They were kind. Petunia shrugged and said nothing and cried alone that night and thought of her sister’s green eyes, when they had loved her.

To see those eyes again, empty of love for her, had been too much. For just one moment she had loved him and then caught herself. That was Lily’s gaze to her, alright. Calm, distant, rejecting. There was and never would be love there and Petunia knew in that moment that this boy would grow up and leave her just like Lily. What was the point in loving him, protecting him, sheltering him from harm? He would leave. This time the rules were hers. 

The symmetry burned her like fire. Owls, letters, emerald green, no photos. But he haunted her, a solid ghost in her own household, turning those damnable eyes on her when she was least expecting it, taking her back over thirty years in a moment. She half-wanted him to say, _I love you, Aunt Tuney._ To say _I want to stay with you and have you look after me._ Even after all she had done to him. She still wanted to see those green eyes filled with love again. But he never did. He just looked at her with that same rejection – was she not good enough? What was she always doing wrong? – and turned away. Just like Lily.

The last time she saw him, the irony was not lost on her. So many things she wanted to say to those green eyes. Just like Lily’s.

But she never did. 


End file.
